The light that was shadowed thenWas seen to be our lives,...Everything about us that love might wish to examine,Then put away for a certain length of time, untilThe whole is to be reviewed, and we turnedToward each other, to each other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book.... ...One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Mr. Goodman's book The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight has enjoyed very good press. It has been lengthily reviewed in the leading dail...ies and weeklies. It has been called "impressive and convincing." The author has been credited with "deep insight" into an "essentially modern" character. Passages have been quoted to demonstrate his efficient handling of nutshells. One critic went so far as to take his hat off to Mr. Goodman--who, let it be added, had used his own merely to talk through it. In a word, Mr. Goodman has been patted on the back when he ought to have been rapped on the knuckles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

You don't want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the prese...nt tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don't want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Here was a great woman; a magnificent, generous, gallant, reckless, fated fool of a woman. There was never a place for her in the ...ranks of the terrible, slow army of the cautious. She ran ahead, where there were no paths.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

With a few exceptions, the critics of children's books are remarkably lenient souls.... Most of us assume there is something good ...in every child; the critics go from this to assume there is something good in every book written for a child. It is not a sound theory.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

There are too many coy books full of talking animals, whimsical children, and condescending adults. (Some of the most famous anima...ls in the world have talked, but they talked real talk and they weren't called silly names like Doody and Mooloo. They were called names like The Cheshire Cat and they asked sensible questions like "Did you say pig, or fig?")LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »